Comments

The interesting question would be how many of the top 400 in 1996 were in the top 400 in any other year. Why can't we know the answer?

Posted by: DLN | May 11, 2011 11:16:10 AM

@DLN -- the last page of the linked document sheds some light on that.

Posted by: Ah yes | May 12, 2011 5:18:22 AM

Is anyone other than myself appalled that the top 400 have an avg tax rate of 18%?

Posted by: Chris | May 12, 2011 5:46:25 AM

Chris, if you are reading this site, I suspect you must know why many of us are not appalled. If you sample the annual income of any tax payer, on any given year, income of this size (token from a distributional perspective) is almost mall explained by classifying as income the realization of accumulated long-term capital gains. Are you appalled that capital gains (which are not indexed by inflation, which captures excess net profitability after taxation, and which represent capture many years' worth of work -- yes, money works) are taxed at a preferential rate? Does it make you feel better that every time we lower this rate, we collect more taxes to spend on entitlement programs and we make tax collections more progressive?